


ode to the childhood you deserved

by dilkirani



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Future Fic, Gen, conversations about parenthood, tw: mentions of fertility issues, tw: past abuse mentions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-26
Updated: 2017-04-26
Packaged: 2018-10-24 08:41:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,403
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10738128
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dilkirani/pseuds/dilkirani
Summary: When Jemma finds out she's pregnant, Fitz is truly happy. But he also realizes he has fears about fatherhood that he can't quite let go.





	ode to the childhood you deserved

**Author's Note:**

> Hemnalini requested on tumblr: "could you please write something with fitz telling his mum in the near future that jemma's preggers and he's afraid about being a dad?" Hope this meets your expectations!  
> <3 <3 to itsavolcano for the beta!

When Jemma tells Fitz she’s pregnant, waving the test in front of him as if she can’t believe it herself and needs him to confirm it for her, Fitz can’t even parse out his own emotions. Shock, for one, because after nearly a year of trying he’d attempted as best he could not to get his hopes up. The letdown, arriving at precisely the correct day each month, sure as clockwork, was devastating enough for Jemma; he’d started to feel he didn’t have the right to any additional grief of his own.

Happiness, for another. Elation, even. Is there a better word for it? He doesn’t know, can’t process synonyms at the moment because Jemma has buried herself in his arms and for once her shuddering tears don’t require any comfort from him.

But it’s something darker too. With the tiny plus sign, it’s real to him in a way it had never been before. Not when they’d discussed it abstractly, not when years later they decided a baby was something they actually wanted for their lives. Not when he’d seen the way Jemma wistfully glanced at other couples with children. Then, it had still been conceptual, a theorem studied in textbooks.

Now, it’s doctor appointments and choosing colors for a nursery and arguing over names and trying to feel any sign of movement, hands pressed down so carefully on Jemma’s still-flat belly.

Now, it’s a fear he’d never realized he possessed, coiled tight in his stomach.

++

Jemma insists they wait until the first trimester is over before telling anyone. She comes armed with statistics, as if he would argue, and he understands her need for control over this. He is a little surprised that she won’t even tell Daisy or her own parents, but he understands. He’s the one who held her every month as she mourned a lost possibility, after all.

It’s such a strange secret to keep. He goes into work and makes small talk. He eats dinner at nice restaurants with Jemma and their friends. He visits his mother every week. And all the time he thinks, _Can’t you see it? Isn’t it obvious? How is my entire life changing and no one knows?_

“Have you told your mum yet?” Jemma asks one night, when he’s hung up with his mother and crawled into bed.

Fitz frowns at her, unsure if she’s serious or not. “Of course not. We agreed to wait. I wouldn’t break your trust.”

Jemma smiles while rolling her eyes. “I know, I just...I would understand. If you did.” She looks down at her hands which are fidgeting with some threads on their comforter.

“Uh...is something wrong?” Fitz asks. Normally she’d be making him recount his entire conversation or spinning out ideas for the next day at work. Instead she seems oddly subdued.

“No,” she rushes to reassure him, “not really. I just realized...you know, I have my reasons for wanting to keep this a secret for now, but this is our child and sometimes I think…” She pauses, rubbing at her eyes in clear frustration. “I feel like there are things you’re not telling me.”

“What?” Fitz is scrambling to follow this conversation and suddenly horrified that he’s done anything to make Jemma think he’s not entirely supportive. “What am I not telling you? Jemma, I agreed to all of this. I _wanted_ all of this—” he throws his hand out, his gesture encompassing everything: their marriage, their child, the life they’ve built together.

“Something’s _bothering_ you,” she cuts him off, twisting so that she meets his eyes fully for the first time. “And I think I have an idea, and I think you want to talk to your mum about it, and I don’t want you to keep waiting for my sake. I trust your mum not to tell anyone else, so you...you can tell her. If you want.”

“Nothing’s bothering me,” he protests, but even as he says it, that familiar tight feeling squeezes against his lungs and he swallows the rest of his words back down. He feels devastated because he had one job in all of this, and he’s letting his wife down spectacularly.

“I’m sorry, Jemma,” he says, resting his forehead against her shoulder. “I’m so sorry.”

“Oh, Fitz,” she sighs, reaching down and twining his fingers with her own. “There’s nothing to apologize for. This is a big change for both of us.” She places a kiss against his hairline, so gentle his heart breaks. “I wouldn’t want to do this with anyone but you, and I trust you more than I trust myself. But I think...you know, if you need to talk to your mum, or…”

She trails off with a small shrug and he sighs, sweeping a hand along her side, her ribcage, until it rests against her stomach. Sometimes he’s afraid he’s imagining all of it.

“Yeah,” he finally responds. “Yeah, okay.”

++

When Fitz tells his mother that Jemma is pregnant, she doesn’t react how he expects her to. He expects screeching and achingly tight hugs and maybe a joking slap on the wrist for not telling her _straight away_. Instead, she sets down her teacup slowly, brings a hand up to her mouth, and cries.

“Mum?” Fitz asks in concern. His first thought is _, oh god, she thinks I can’t do this. She thinks this is a mistake and I’ll be a terrible father, and if she thinks I’ll be a terrible father she must be right._

“Oh, Leo,” she murmurs, hastily wiping her eyes. “I’m sorry, I’m so happy, really. What wonderful news.”

“Really?” he replies, playing with the condensation on the table. “You don’t seem it.”

“Of course I’m happy,” she scoffs. “You know I’ve wanted a grandchild for ages. And you and Jemma live so close. But you seem...you don’t seem as happy as I’d expect. I know this has been a difficult process for both of you...”

“What? I’m happy! Why would you say that?” Linda gives him a _look_ , and he sighs. “I am happy. Really, truly. But I’m also a little worried. A lot, okay. A lot worried.”

“I know,” she says, reaching a hand across the table to hold his, stilling his movements in the process. “So many things can go wrong, it’s natural to worry. But you can’t let that fear overwhelm all of the good that you’re feeling.”

“Yeah, no,” he answers, shaking his head and not quite meeting her eyes. “It’s not...I mean, of course I’m worried about Jemma and the baby being healthy and all, but it’s not...it’s also…” He pinches his eyes shut in frustration, wishing he could blame the aphasia for the jumbled words coming to his lips. He shrugs then and looks up at his mum helplessly. He sees something flicker behind her eyes, a sickening realization.

“Oh,” she breathes, deflating a bit, suddenly looking weary and so much older.

“Yeah.”

They stay like this for a moment, Fitz’s leg bouncing as silent tears continue to fall down his mother’s face. He’s just about to apologize—for what, he’s not quite sure—when Linda stands abruptly and holds a hand out to him.

“Come on, then,” she says and leads him up the stairs to her bedroom. He sits on her bed while she rummages through a dresser, eventually returning with an old photo album and sitting hip-to-hip beside him.

She flips it open and they go through the pictures together. It’s an odd sort of history; his mother has removed almost all evidence of his father from their lives, but he’s hidden everywhere, like some maleficent spirit that only those aware can sense. Here is a photo of Fitz happily eating candy floss at the zoo, but the specter of a beating hangs over it, when he’d been too distracted by the monkey exhibit to pay attention to where he walked and tripped over his father’s heels. He remembers watching the sticky sweet smash into his father’s suit as if in slow motion and hating himself because really, it was _so easy_ to be a good child, and why couldn’t he manage it?

Here is Fitz clinging to his mum, and the polaroid has dulled enough with age that the shimmer of tears in her eyes looks only like happiness. Here are his piles of tools and parts for an experiment which had all been wiped off the table when his father returned home drunk and angry at the mess. Here is Fitz’s graduation photo, one arm around his mum and one arm empty, hanging still at his side.

“When I got pregnant,” his mother says, breaking the silence suddenly, “I thought...I wondered if I shouldn’t keep it. Your father wasn’t—nothing had gotten that bad, yet. We still had good times, but every now and then I recognized something in him that scared me. I worried about bringing a child into that situation. Part of me thought it might calm him down, to be a father. But some part of me knew it wouldn’t. And sometimes I hate myself for that decision.”

“Mum,” he whispers, horrified and heartbroken. She has never told him this. There is an ocean of unsaid things between them and all of it is about a man they’d wrecked themselves against trying to please.

“It wasn’t fair to you,” she sobs. “But I loved you so much. I wanted you so much, from the moment I found out.” She presses a finger to a picture of Fitz, five years old, holding up a book on engineering he’d received as a gift from a family friend. “You were the light of my life. Sometimes I truly think you were the only thing that saved me during those years. And what kind of mother brings a child into the world just to save her own life?”

She drops the photo album and it lands on the carpet with a dull thud. Fitz wraps her in his arms before he’s even conscious of moving.

“Mum,” he says again, “that’s not...please don’t, you can’t…” He sighs, drawing her even closer to him before trying again. “None of this was your fault. And, for what it’s worth, I’m quite glad to be alive.”

She chokes out a laugh, wrapping her arms around his waist. The last time they held onto each other this tightly and talked about his father, he could fit onto her lap. Now, her head rests under his chin and she looks so very small.

Eventually, she shifts so that she’s facing him. She wipes the tears from his cheeks gently while seemingly unaware of her own. “I have spent years worrying about the kind of mother I was to you. About how I could have protected you. But I never once worried about the type of man you would become.” She smiles then, pinching at his earlobe. “You were the best son I could’ve asked for. I know your heart, Leo, and trust me when I say that I have no doubt whatsoever about your ability to be a good father. Even when you lose your temper, when you experience hardships or setbacks, I’ve never once seen your father in you. You and Jemma love each other so much, and you will love this child so much, and I just…I truly believe that’s enough.”

Fitz looks at his mother and sees nothing but warmth and truth and love shining in her eyes. He holds her gaze for as long as he can before it all gets too overwhelming. He falls back against the bed, limbs askew, and finally allows his body to still, allows his breathing to even out.

“Mum?” he asks, and feels her hand rest on his in response. “D’you have any ice cream?”

She laughs, squeezing his arm. “You think your own mother doesn’t know why you’re here? Jemma’s purged the desserts again, hasn't she?”

“Blah blah, nutrition for the baby, blah blah,” Fitz replies, grinning up at his mother. She pulls on his arm until he stands up and he follows her dutifully into the kitchen. They eat ice cream and watch some TV, and by the time Fitz gets ready to leave everything feels soft and safe.

He stands at the threshold of the door, shifting from foot to foot. “I love you, Mum,” he says and she smirks up at him.

“I know.”

“No, but, Mum,” he stammers, throwing his arms around her fiercely. “I love you. I’m so glad you’ll always be here, especially now with the baby.”

Linda leans her head against his chest and smiles. “Tell Jemma to come over soon. I have a lot of ideas for the spare bedroom. I need to get it prepared so I can babysit at a moment’s notice.”

Fitz steps back, holding a hand to his heart in shock. “Surely you’re not talking about _my_ bedroom?”

“Leopold Fitz, you’re thirty-five years old.”

He sighs. “Okay, but don’t throw away my picture of space, yeah?”

She rolls her eyes. “Would I ever?” He laughs and she pushes him away gently. “Give Jemma my love.”

He could take the bus home, but he walks instead. He finds the crisp air clarifying and the thoughts in his head gradually slot into place. He feels at peace in a way he hasn’t in awhile, and he pulls his phone from his pocket to call Jemma.

“Hi,” she mumbles, and he can tell he’s woken her from a nap. “Where are you?”

“Walking back,” he answers, kicking a pebble in his path. “But I missed you.” He can hear her shift to get more comfortable and when he closes his eyes he can see her clearly: feet tucked under a couch cushion, phone propped against her shoulder, a journal article spread out on her lap.

“Tell me what happened,” she whispers, and so he does. And by the time he finishes his story, she’s at their doorstep waiting, arms reaching towards him, illuminated in the lamplight like his own beautiful fairy tale.

“I missed you, too,” she says and drags him down for a kiss. She tastes sweet, like an illicit dessert she’ll no doubt confess to later. It’s intoxicating, the push and pull of her, and when he follows her inside all he can think is: _how can I possibly be this lucky?_


End file.
